Menno Simons

131 Christians Everyone Should Know ^ | 2000 | Mark Galli

[MarcoPolo]

"If the Head had to suffer such torture, anguish, misery, and pain, how shall his servants, children, and members expect peace and freedom as to their flesh?" "The error of the cursed sect of the Anabaptists … would doubtless be and remain extirpated, were it not that a former priest Menno Symons … has misled many simple and innocent people," complained a letter to the regent of the Netherlands in 1541. "To seize and apprehend this man we have offered a large sum of money, but until now with no success. Therefore we have entertained the thought of offering and promising pardon and mercy to a few who have been misled … if they would bring about the imprisonment of the said Menno Symons." Holy Roman Emperor Charles V joined in the hunt, offering 100 gold guilders for Menno's arrest. One Dutch man was broken on the wheel and executed merely for allowing Menno to stay with him. But the former priest, a pacifist armed with ideas but no weapons, was never caught. Instead, he led the Anabaptists out of their radical, violent, millennialist fantasies into a moderate, devotional, pacifist movement....

[MarcoPolo]

I thought it would be good to post an article about a man who one of the brightest lights (if not the most well known) in the Reformation. The only one of the major Reformation leaders who understood that violence in the name of God comes not from God but from Satan, his beliefs (and the beliefs of others before him) in peaceful disputes over doctrine (using only bans rather than weapons) have permeated and resonated throughout much of mainstream Christianity today, overcoming the violence of the major Reformers and replacing it with the spiritual warfare of Christ and the apostles.

Menno Simons is one of my heroes and is an example of faith, love and perseverance to all.

[MarcoPolo]

bump

[Chickensoup]

and he made Marmites!

Ummm. I mean Mennonites.

[Twinkie]

Well, we stopped at a Mennonite bakery today. The women there were working in peaceful-appearing harmony, with Christian songs playing on a tape player. - I don’t know that I agree with all the ideas and teachings of the Mennonites and Amish, and I certainly don’t know all their beliefs, but I think they do seem to try to live by the scriptures from what I’ve seen on the outside at any rate. We could all use more peace, that’s for sure.

[MarcoPolo]

I don't agree with all their beliefs either. I don't agree with completely separating our community of believers from the world---otherwise there would be no way to reach the lost! Paul spoke plainly about this in his epistles. I wonder actually whether Simons would agree entirely were he here today either. But then, I don't agree with Simons on some things as well.

Nevertheless, he was one of the few bright spots on an otherwise very dark, cruel period of church history---a period of persecution and violence between warring factions within those calling themselves Christian. While some papists as well as other "reformers" were burning, beheading, drowning or in other ways executing (murdering) people for heresy or calling for Jews to be physically persecuted (even up to death), he and the others with him repudiated all such wickedness, rightly condemning those people, whose hands were full of malice and blood, and rightly following a path of peaceful disagreement between brethren.

[Twinkie]

It seems like now that people who call themselves Christians live just like the world does,partaking in all the vices of the world. There is no cost in their lives to calling themselves Christians since they think they can just do as they please and still be “Christians”. I almost think we’re in a time frame largely where the phrase, “if a man be filthy, let him be filthy STILL.” may appl. Meaning, I think, that there’s a point where when a person still lives a rebellious, sinful life, he reaches a point after while when you might as well just leave him alone to do as he pleases. A large portion of our citizenry seems to be in that category.

[MarcoPolo]

I know what you mean. They've been taught that we were saved by grace but often haven't been taught, "What? Shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid!" The lower, more worldly desires of humanity have been catered to and excused far too much in the church, I think, as an overreaction to the excessive condemnation and lack of forgiveness shown to those penitent sinners who had committed those sorts of sins in the 50's, 60's and back beyond that. It's an overreaction I think.

The unfortunate thing is that now we're beginning to see another, opposite overreaction to the excesses of recent years in the resurgence of Calvinism. People seem to turn from one false idea to another rather than meeting Jesus in the middle where he actually is.